Chapter 14 Opinions on Yang Bin’s case after five years

Yang Bin Event was the cause behind the cooling down of China-North Korea Relations.
Since 5:10 am, October 4, 2002, when Yang Bin was taken away by the Chinese police and later sentenced by court, five years have passed!
During this period, many events and dramatic changes happened on the Korean Peninsula. At first, five hours after Yang Bin was summoned to be taken away by the police, which was 10:00 am on October 4, Lee Kan, the Deputy Director of the United States Office of North Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs, informed James Andrew Kelly, the special envoy of the U.S., that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons, thus triggered the North Korea nuclear crisis. Many experts on international issues and the media said that it was to express North Korea’s discontent to the pressure that Kelly, the special envoy and Deputy Secretary of State of the U.S., put on the North Korea. Some scholars also said that this was an inevitable act for a small country to fight against the United States. However, some observers on North Korea issues said that this was actually for North Korea to express its serious discontent towards the incident of five hours ago that the Chinese took away Yang Bin, the Chief Executive of Sinuiju Special Administrative Region. According to Article 2 of Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea signed in Beijing on August 30, 1961, “The two parties will jointly guarantee to take all measures to prevent other country’s aggression on either side of the two parties. Once a party encounters attack or joint-attack from any country or countries and thus in a state of war, the other party should do its best to provide military and other types of assistance.” That was to say, if the North Korea encounters military attack from foreign countries, China would “do its best to provide military and other types of assistance”. This also meant that with the Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Assistance between China and North Korea, the national security of North Korea was protected. The reason for North Korea to develop nuclear weapons was to declare that there was no protection for its national security, which in turn meant that China was not trustworthy. That was just the viewpoint of some scholars and observers on North Korea issues.
With the development of North Korea nuclear issues and the tension on the Korean peninsula, the international community started to make efforts so as to smooth out; in particular, China did a lot of work. Thus, we had the Four-Party Talks, the Six-Party Talks and later on the Missile Crisis, the North Korea Nuclear Explosion Test, the United Nations Sanction, the U.S.-North Korea Secret Talks, North Korea’s Abandonment of Nuclear Program, North Korea-South Korea Summit Talks, the U.S.-North Korea Secret Letters’ Diplomacy and so on. These efforts have relaxed the tension on the Korean Peninsula and gained some progress.
According to U.S. media: On December 11, 2007, Mehta, the head of United States Philharmonic Orchestra, and Pak Gil-Yon, the Permanent Representative of North Korea in the United Nations, announced in New York that the United States Philharmonic Orchestra would visit the North Korea from February 25 to 27 in 2008 and made performances there. They would hold a concert in the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre on February 26. The repertoire included Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” and Dvorak’s “Symphony No. 9 in E-minor, From the New World”, and other traditional repertoires as well as national anthems of the United States and North Korea. Some of the media associated this “music diplomacy” supported by the State Department of the U.S. with the “ping-pong diplomacy” between China and the U.S. in 1971. More of the media gave a positive interpretation on the improvement of relations between the US and North Korea. The Yonhap News Agency of South Korea published an article on the 11th entitled “Will the performance of Philharmonic Orchestra serve as a signal to break the ice?” and commented, “North Korea allows the Orchestra from the United States which always calls it ‘axis of evil’ to play its U.S. national anthem in Pyongyang. That is really a tremendous change. Hope that the performance will be successful, and leads to a breakthrough in the U.S.-North Korea relation just like the ping-pong diplomacy between China and the U.S. more than 30 years ago which ultimately led to formal establishment of diplomatic relations between these two countries.
The relations between North Korea and the U.S. are improving to an extent. This is an indisputable fact. The relations may go through periods of up and down. But ultimately it should lead to peaceful co-existence, which can be viewed as its destiny in history.
From Oct 2 to Oct 4 of 2007, South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun visited Pyongyang. This was the second summit talks between North Korea and South Korea. Two parties issued a joint declaration to claim that there would be “three or four countries” to work together to come up with the Korea peninsula peace agreement. The initiative to reach an end-fire agreement by “three countries” was Kim Jong II’s insistence on the participation of this negotiation by North Korea, South Korea and the United States. He also claimed that, “there is no Chinese army on the land of North Korea long time ago” (the Chinese volunteer army withdrew entirely in 1958). Observers on the issues of North Korea commented, the “three-country initiative” was clearly to express Kim Jong II’s dissatisfaction on the Yang Bin event and his view that “China is not trustworthy”. Roh Moo-Hyun thought that “it’s better to let China in for the negotiation”. That was the reason behind “the possibility of four countries”. It was not clear yet as to whether there would be either three countries or four countries involved for the agreement. However, after Roh Moo-Hyun returned home, the spokesman of Cheong Wa Dae President’s Office said, “We do not care whether China will participate or not”. But at the moment, we are sure that the relations between North Korea and South Korea have been improved.
So how about the relations between China and North Korea?
From January 15 to 20 of 2001, the General Secretary of the North Korea Workers Party Kim Jong II visited China. Kim Jong II took a four-day visit in Shanghai, which impressed him a lot. When he met Jiang Zemin in Beijing, he emphasized, “China, Shanghai in particular, has witnessed drastic changes since the reform and opening-up, which fully proves that the policy of reform and opening-up implemented by the Communist Party of China was correct. At that time, it’s fair to say that the relations between North Korea and China were moving toward good direction. It could have chance to advance. But later, this relationship didn’t work as expected. It all arose from the Sinuiju SAR and Yang Bin event.
Since people all over North Korea expected the establishment and opening-up of Sinuiju SAR. But the arrest of Yang Bin, the chief executive of Sinuiju, put a quick end to the whole SAR project. Thus the North Koreans bore a grudge in mind until today. The relations between these two countries became cold since then. North Korea also took advantages of certain opportunities and occasions to express its dissatisfaction on this issue, even today.
On November 23, there was an article on Boxun website, published by Zhang Ying, under the title of “Yang Bin Event and the Six-Party Talks – Yang Bin Event, the Hidden Trigger to the Test of North Korea Nuclear Weapons”. I did not agree with the authenticity of some of the sources in that article. But some of his views were similar to those of some observers on the issues of North Korea. In his view, “Yang Bin’s case is not an isolated incident. Its influence on the international relations between the East and the West in the post-Cold War era, particularly on the tension between China and North Korea, still exists. It was the catalyst of Yang Bin event that gave rise to the resumption of nuclear weapon test by North Korea and its success in the test. This move was North Korea’s response towards China’s illegal detention of its senior official. It was also the opportunity to adopt “use nuclear to bluff nuclear” strategy to pull the only superpower, the United States, into the game. From there, there were marathon-style six-party (China, the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Russia and Japan) talks in Beijing over a period of more than 4 years. In the sixth round, we expect to see that eventually North Korea “disables its nuclear facilities”.
Zhang Ying believed that Yang Bin event triggered North Korea’s nuclear test, and commented, “Some of the respected current affairs commentators in the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan recently discussed about the reasons behind North Korea’s nuclear test. They shared the view that President Bush of the U.S. had claimed that Iraq, Iran and North Korea were the three core countries of evil. North Korea was unwilling to be regarded as ‘one of the three rogue countries’. That was why North Korea conducted nuclear test. However, it was in the State of the Union of September 2000 that Bush addressed North Korea as one of the core rogue countries. But from year 2000 to September 2003 when North Korea publicly acknowledged its nuclear test, three years and eight months had passed. During this period, from year 2000 to September 2002, the U.S. had waged war against Iraq. Why didn’t North Korea conduct nuclear test to fight back then? It was obvious that there was still no Yang Bin event at that time.” This comment bears good logics. At least, Yang Bin event should be one of the catalysts behind North Korea’s action.
When referring to North Korea’s move to establish the Sinuiju Special Administrative Region, Zhang Ying said, “North Korea thought that setting up the Sinuiju SAR was to follow the recommendations from several generations of leaders in China. From the visit of the earlier Chairman of CPC Central Committee Hua Guofeng to North Korea, to the conversation between Deng Xiaoping and Kim II Sung, to the visits of Secretaries-General of CPC Central Committee Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang to North Korea successively, to the visit of General Secretary Jiang Zemin to North Korea, to Kim Jong II’s visit to China, from all these visits North Korea received urges from China to reform, to open up, and to establish Sinuiju SAR.” Leaders of the CPC Central Committee had recommended to North Korea on the establishment of Sinuiju SAR. No public announcement had been released as of now. This record could only be stored. But one thing was certain. China hoped that North Korea could open-up, and hoped the economy of North Korea could develop well so that the people there could live a better life. China would therefore have a wealthy good neighbor. This direction was rooted from China’s peaceful rising and peaceful foreign policy.
Zhang Ying said, “The relations between China and North Korea became more distant gradually. As the saying goes, ‘It takes more than one cold day for the river to freeze as deep as three feet.’ Yang Bin event added nothing but quick-freezing agent. Yang Bin event triggered North Korea nuclear test, which then led to the Beijing six-party talks. That was to say, Yang Bin event catalyzed the six-party talks. Without the release of Yang Bin, the six-party talks were going nowhere. Or at least these talks were stuck in a marathon race. That was the logic behind these talks.” Some of the International Studies scholars and observers on North Korea issue also shared the same view. However, this was not a mainstream point of view.
Zhang Ying thought that the North Korea resumed tests of nuclear weapons was a sign that North Korea had “given up its illusion of so-called protection from China’s ‘nuclear umbrella’, to unseal the frozen Yongbyon nuclear reactor under the agreement made in 1995 during the period of U.S. Clinton’s administration. It planned to use its own nuclear deterrent force to be against neighboring major powers such as China, Japan and so on. This way of ‘using nuclear to bluff nuclear’, the ‘power of nuclear defense’, and the ‘self-defense measure’ were bound to lead the Bush administration back to the negotiation table and to force the United States to talk directly with North Korea. Ultimately, it would realize the normalization of diplomatic relations between North Korea and the United States. It intended to play the U.S. card to contain China.” Many foreign scholars believed that China was playing the North Korea card to contain the U.S. Why did it turn out that the North Korea was playing the U.S. card to contain China? Zhang Ying believed that Yang Bin event was the reason behind.
Well-known political science as well as International Studies professor, Professor of International Institute of Strategic Studies of the CPC Central Party School Zhang Liangui had on many occasions exchanged views with the writer on the North Korea issue. He believed that the North Korea’s using nuclear weapons to express dissatisfaction with the neighboring countries did not start in the 1990s that was the first North Korean nuclear crisis we often said during the Clinton administration time of the United States. Professor Zhang said that in 1965, the general secretary of Japanese Communist Party Xianzhi-Miyamoto visited China and advocated China and the Soviet Union to cease polemics and defense the United States together, which was rejected by the Chinese Communists. Xianzhi-Miyamoto visited the North Korea and talked with Kim II Sung, the two sides reached a consensus and issued a joint statement, to defense the United States together. Thus, the Sino-Japanese relations came to a halt, The relations between China and North Korea begun to be cool. In 1969, due to the open debate of China and North Korea, and the two parties, the relations became very tense, and North Korea announced to carry out nuclear weapons test at this time. This was not only against the United States, but also against the neighboring countries, against China as well. On October 4, 2002, the Korean diplomat told the United States special envoy Kelly that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons, which can be said to express North Korea’s dissatisfaction with the United States, can also be said to express the dissatisfaction with China, that was to kill two birds with one stone.
Zhang Liangui, a well-known professor in the political science and international studies also a current professor in the International Institute of Strategic Studies of the CPC Central Party School, had on many occasions exchanged views with me on the North Korea issues. He believed that the use of nuclear weapons by North Korea to express its dissatisfaction with the neighboring countries did not start in the 1990s, when was often referred to as the first nuclear crisis of North Korea during Clinton administration. Professor Zhang said that in 1965, the general secretary of Japanese Communist Party Xianzhi Miyamoto visited China and advocated that China should cease polemics with the Soviet Union. Instead, these two countries should unite to fight against the United States together. But his proposal was rejected by the Chinese Communists. Xianzhi-Miyamoto then visited the North Korea and talked with Kim II Sung. They reached consensus and issued a joint statement. Together they would defend against the United States. From then on, the relation between China Communist Party and Japan Communist Party came to a halt. The relations between China and North Korea also began to be more distant. In 1969, due to the open debate between China and North Korea, and that between the communist parties of these two countries, their relations became very tense. At that time, North Korea declared that it would develop nuclear weapons. This announcement was targeted not only to the United States, but also to its neighboring countries, China included. On October 4, 2002, the Korean diplomat told the United States special envoy Kelly that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons. This message was a gesture to show the dissatisfaction North Korea had with the United States and with China. It’s the strategy of so-called “killing two birds with one stone”.

At 5:15 am, October 4, 2002, Yang Bin was taken away by the police. At 8 am, North Korea diplomatic personnel Han Ming-Zhe and we had breakfast in Hague Hotel of Holland Village. This was the first time for him to eat with us alone. At that time, the vice-presidents of Holland Village Li Gang, Shi Jun and people who participated in the drafting and negotiation of Sinuiju Fundamental Law including Ma Ning and Yang Dayong were also present. Han said, “The Chief Executive, Mr. Yang was taken away by the police at 5 am. At 6 am, General Kim learned about it already. The president Kim in Sinuiju also learned about it. Kim said that the arrest was targeted not at Chief Executive Yang, but at us. This let us lose face in front of the world.” After saying those words, he looked at us sadly.
I remembered that in June 2002, at the request of Yang Bin, North Korea informed the China Embassy twice about the decision of North Korea government to establish the Sinuiju Special Administrative Region and the upcoming appointment of Yang Bin as its Chief Executive. Officials at Chinese Embassy expressed support for the Sinuiju Special Administrative Region, but did not agree with North Korea’s decision to appoint Yang Bin as the Chief Executive. They proposed that North Korea consider other candidates. According to the introduction of Kim Dong-kyu, the President of the Pyongyang General Office of Gardening (North Korea’s chief delegate), the staff in the Foreign Affairs Ministry of North Korea had expressed clearly during the meeting with the officials in China Embassy that, if China wishes to show its support to Sinuiju, it had to support Yang Bin as well. Whether China could support Yang Bin or not would be a test for the relations between China and North Korea. Officials of China embassy in North Korea then asked whether these words were the true spirit from the top or their personal understanding. The staff in the Foreign Affairs Ministry of North Korea replied, “Every word from my mouth today has been approved by the General. Some words are exactly the original words from the General.”
On September 12, 2002, the Standing Committee of North Korea Supreme People’s Assembly published [No.3303 Decision of Decree] to pass the decision of developing Sinuiju and Sinuiju Special Administrative Region Basic Law. On September 24, the Standing commissaries of North Korea Supreme People’s Assembly held the plenary session in Mansudae Assembly Hall of Pyongyang, the chairman Kim Yong-nam formally granted Yang bin the appointment letter of Sinuiju SAR Chief Executive. It was known that the Chinese envoy in North Korea and other foreign diplomatic envoys joined the celebration banquet. The same day, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said at a news conference, “Noting that North Korea announced the establishment of Sinuiju SAR, we welcome and support North Korea’s new initiative in economic construction.” Ten days later, the chief executive of Sinuiju of North Korea Yang Bin was summoned to take away by the police in Shenyang. Facing with this unexpected incident, the whole North Korea country was shocked. As Korean diplomat Han Ming-zhe said, “This let us lose face in the world.” Korean nation was a real face-adored nation, with the characteristics of oriental culture. This was the same with China. Thus, at the third day after Yang Bin was arrested, the vice chairman of the Standing Committee of Korea Supreme People’s Assembly Yang Hyong-sop, of executive will be led by the Korean party and government delegation to visit China. I believe this is related to Yang Bin. It is learnt that after returning Yang Hyong-sop led the delegation of Korea Workers Party and government. Believed that was related to Yang Bin event. It was said that after Yang Hyong-sop got back, the Central Committee newspaper of North Korea Workers Party “North Korea News”, radio and television, newspaper and media publicized “Glorious Deeds of Yang Bin” repeatedly, and called him “The Greatest International Communist Warrior” and “Contemporary Bethune”.
In “Yang Bin Event and the Six-Party Talks – Yang Bin Event, the Hidden Trigger to the Test of North Korea Nuclear Weapons”, Zhang Ying talked about Yang Hyong-sop’s visit to China and his request for the release of Yang Bin. He said, “Yang Hyong-sop and his party negotiated with China to release Yang Bin, but of no avail. He became angry and returned from Beijing to Pyongyang. The Central Committee of Korea Workers Party, the Parliament, and the Cabinet were in an uproar. There was a massive anti-China wave there. They affirmed that ‘China was completely unreliable.’ They also made the schemes of ‘resuming test of nuclear weapons’ and ‘play the U.S. card to contain China.’” I don’t know whether Zhang Ying’s source was correct or not. But one thing is for sure. Due to Yang Bin event, North Korea lost face significantly in the international community, and the reform and opening-up of Sinuiju SAR was stranded as a result. The relations between China and North Korea became cold and tense. This was obvious.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhang Qiyue expressed welcome for the establishment of the Sinuiju SAR of North Korea. Her statement was on behalf of the China government. But the police of Liaoning province arrested Yang Bin and the Supreme Court sentenced him 18 years in jail. I wondered whether it was a gain or loss that the relation between China and North Korea became tense just because of an individual called Yang Bin. We often say that an individual’s issue is always a small issue, but the national issue is always a large issue. So, I remain puzzled and cannot find any good answer for myself. When this foreign businessman Yang Bin carried out business activities in China, what laws he violated could exceed our national interests?
One observer on North Korea issues told me, “Yang Bin was the doom of the relations between China and North Korea”.
However, this “doom” was for both sides. How to make this “doom” as a live doom, rather than a dead one? On the chessboard, the doom means the benefit for only one side at the end. But on the chessboard of the relations between China and North Korea, can’t we achieve a win-win case for both sides?
CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao pointed out in the diplomatic policy of the Report to the Seventeenth National Congress that, “We persist in that countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, should all be equal. We respect the rights of the people in all countries to choose their path of development independently. We don’t interfere with the internal affairs of other countries. We don’t impose our wills onto others.” “China will never do harm to others so as to benefit ourselves. We will never treat our neighbors as a trash can.” “We will continue to implement the policy of being a good neighbor and partner with our surrounding countries. We will strengthen our friendly relations with neighbors and seek for inter-regional cooperation, so that all of us can create a peaceful, stable, equal, trustworthy, win-win environment together.” This is our commitment to the international community, also our commitment to the neighboring countries. And that, of course, includes North Korea.
Then, Yang Bin event will have an ending one day ultimately. I hope that it is a win-win outcome.